Scope & Focus
To establish the scope of the fellowship at TU Delft, urban forestry is interpreted from the perspective of built environment studies, whereby ‘the urban forest’ is nested within the concept of greenspace planning, design and management at various spatial scales. As such the urban forest is seen to encompass a range of features, typologies and systems, from individual trees on public and private lands, through to wooded streets, squares, parks and woodlands, neighbourhood green networks, and green-blue systems at the scale of city and urban region. Given the disciplinary angle of the fellowship and the current limitations of resources, the focus will be on the investigation and elaboration of these various scales through the (lens of) of Dutch (lowland) cities.
The various scales of urban forestry also reveal the multi-dimensionality of the urban forest, impacting as it does on environmental, ecological, socio-spatial and economic health of cities and urban communities. As such, urban forestry encompasses all these dimensions, and assumes their synergy to be fundamental to any sustainable urban environment. This multi-dimensionality resonates with the discipline of landscape architecture and informs the further elaboration of the focus of the fellow(ship). The fellowship strives to address each of these dimensions in research, education, valorisation and advocacy but within the limits of the appointment, focusses specifically on environmental aspects such as climate adaptation and microclimate (see research projects).
